Please add joypad support to your tables or leave them unlocked

[jukecade]

Hi All

If you are one of those excellent clever people who designs pinball tables for visual pinball/pinmame then I appeal to you to add joypad functionality to your scripts. Its very easy to do and only adds a little bit of coding to your script. I can obviosuly edit unprotected tables and update them myself but there are a few excelent tables out there which are locked so its impossible to edit (Diner_cyBORG_v0.83L, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 1_1, RockyHorror, Serenity, etc). So guys please either leave your tables unlocked or please add joypad functionality. Before you all shout I know that there are programs such as joytokey and xpadder but these programs interfer with my games menu so I cant use them....

Thanks

--- Option 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
add these lines after the Opion Explicit line at the top of the script

dim joyleftflip
dim joyrightflip
dim joystart
dim joycoin
dim joyplunger
dim joyaddball
dim joytilt
joyleftflip = 16777268
joyrightflip = 16777269
joycoin = 16777272
joystart = 16777273
joyplunger = 16777264
joytilt = 16777267
joyaddball = 16777266

--- Option 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
or add this lines after the Opion Explicit line at the top of the script

ExecuteGlobal GetTextFile("VPMKeys.vbs")

Ensure the vmpkeys.vbs is in your scripts or tables folder (See link for download - Credit to the original author)

--- Then ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
then make sure anything that has a keycode function also checks the joyxxx function: for example in the Sub Table1_KeyDown(ByVal keycode)
& Sub Table1_KeyUp(ByVal keycode) add this code to the functions:

If keycode = PlungerKey or keycode = joyplunger Then
if keycode=6 or keycode=joycoin then
if keycode=31 or keycode=joystart then

if keycode =30 or keycode=joyaddball then
If keycode = LeftFlipperKey or keycode=joyleftflip Then
If keycode = RightFlipperKey or keycode=joyrightflip Then
If keycode = CenterTiltKey or keycode=joytilt Then

--- Remember ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Remember also advoid message boxes where the user needs to click with their mouse **

I have included a pDF guide I created to help out..

--- Also -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Not related to this joypad plea but it would be so useful if you added any roms required by your table with your table.vpt as part of your download zip. Some roms aren't available for download or some use roms from other tables. For example I did not know what roms the Miss-World table required until I read somewhere it was a KISS hack and it used the KISS roms.

* Some tables (Elvis_JP_v1.1 and Hotwheels, etc) also have a message when run to say "Please be aware that this games sound emulation is not working 100% Properly" and I cant see from the script how to turn it off. Even using the full screen arcade version of the table has these messages. Maybe its some function in pinmame i can turn off. Can anyone help?

Thank you so much



Peace

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

like you i've had problems with some of the intermediate gamepad programs for various reasons across various applications, but there are so many to try that i've always discovered one that did the job. aside from the two you mentioned, try:

rbjoy
pinnacle
enjoy2
...or the native software that comes with your (PC) controller.


the problem with getting authors to update scripts is that you're looking at scores or hundreds of people who made tables as far back as 15 years ago. good idea, but just not gonna happen.

in fact i recall that earlier versions of VP didn't even include the ability to poll the controller registers, so for many of these authors who made tables and then left the VP scene, it wasn't even possible.

 

[sleepy]

I thought that Visual Pinball allowed gamepad configurations using the Preferences > Keys menu. I'm pretty sure it does now, though older versions did not.

Try connecting your gamepad or device, open that menu. On the "Button Assignment" pane, click on the text area window for each key to highlight it in blue, and then press the desired button or stick/pad to set it. Click O.K. to exit.

Let us know if that doesn't work.

 

[Itchigo]

This should help. The automatic table unlocker (™). Got to file/Unlock. It'll ask for the code, type in anything you want, unlock and save. The table is now unlocked.

**For personal use only**:)

For what it's worth I use X-Padder in my cab with no issues.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

This should help. The automatic table unlocker (â„¢). Got to file/Unlock. It'll ask for the code, type in anything you want, unlock and save. The table is now unlocked.

**For personal use only**:)

For what it's worth I use X-Padder in my cab with no issues.

wow... that would have greatly helped when i was in to VP!

most of the time the re-creator crowd would drop in bright PF's that clashed a lot with the PF objects. so i had to use a file extractor to pull the image out, dim it down, then pop it back in, repeat until i got the right level... and that was only when the table was unlocked.

also, that didn't work for the tables with huge decals that created the PF image.

 

[Itchigo]

It just goes to show there's nothing that you can't fix with a sledge......:d

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

now if only they could apply that to their (last i heard) still dreadful flipper physics.

 

[Itchigo]

I've heard all the complaints about that stuff. The truth is I'm just happy to be able to play these at all. The community in general is too nitpicky (imo). When I started here I thought I knew everything because I used to be an operator. Then you talk to Greywolf and Pbecker1946, and you realize how little you actually know. (PBecker1946 is actually a personal friend, I just had him over to play my cab last week).

most of the time the re-creator crowd would drop in bright PF's that clashed a lot with the PF objects. so i had to use a file extractor to pull the image out, dim it down, then pop it back in, repeat until i got the right level... and that was only when the table was unlocked.

That's what I do now for testing.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

so when did you get in to VP, itchigo?

 

[Itchigo]

That's a funny tale that actually starts here. I finally decided to buy a computer because of a job search- I had never used one before. I haven't even had a typing class in school either. This was June 2009. I literally taught myself Windows, folder structure, etc, from the ground up with no help except Google. I came across Space Cadet Pinball on XP. I enjoyed it, especially having been an operator. Then I started looking for a CD-Rom Pinball games to buy. At this point I still didn't know what subfolders were. I found VP (cue angelic music), I loved that I could get games from here for free, and without having to sign up. I downloaded what I could, but I still couldn't get VPM to work because of the roms not being in a subfolder (roms folder). VP worked fine.

That was then......

Now I'm on my 3rd site, I have like 15 original games I've done, many FS mods. I can do B2S, Java, HTML (some), I've built the machine I'm typing this on, and I built a laptop from parts (A.K.A "The Dell From Hell"). Hell officially froze over when my wife started asking ME questions. Now I like to code for the challenge of it. Coding backglasses is fun- depending on who you do it for. Example.

Controller.B2ssetscore 1, score means I'm calling the controller (1) to display the variable (score) on the reel, ok? So i have to go in and find what variable is being used that I need to call. If I mod a Compufox game (for my own use, of course) to FS, this is what I need because he's a programmer, and can't do anything easily....
Controller.B2ssetscore 1, TCount(1)*10 +HCount(1)*100 +KCount(1)*1000 +TKCount(1)*10000

Basically I had to take the 5 variables and make them one because I went from 5 individual reels to a single 5 reel unit on the backglass. But I like the challenge.

Just found this, surprised it's still here. Apparently I could hack a gamepad without knowing Windows lol. I was here a couple months- and I wanted a cab....
http://www.pinballnirvana.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7580&highlight=kenwood+pinball

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

just be careful about throwing around the word "nitpicky," itchy. some of us began and ended in VP up to eight years before you came in. and your accomplishments are good.

15 years... major advances in modelling and programming across that crazy long time on the internet. yet it still doesn't translate in to VP fixing its chronically bad area. sadness.

as i recall bob used to say-- "the more authors the richer the broth" or something. eight is great, but fifteen is just a different dimension, maybe.

maybe.

 

[Itchigo]

When I say "nitpicky" I mean some people complain the screws are wrong for the table. Or some stupid stuff like that. I'm just happy to be able to play these at all.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Wow... has it really been 15 years? I guess I first looked it up about 16 years ago. Because there were a bunch of tables that looked fantastic... but there was not way to play them. Kinda wish Itchigo had been around then. He could have read up on it over a weekend and then invented PinMame! Sounds like I missed the train by not-too-much, since I stumbled across you pack of rogues about 2004. Still the most fun I've had on an internet discussion board ever. And in the ensuing decade, I've learned not one single thing about how to design a table. I'm not very bright.

 

[sleepy]

I don't think it's you Ruby. Computer programming languages are inscrutable by design.
Cryptic. It's all about the $$$$$$$$$

I think the Visual Pinball code was sometimes the easiest to get into, but if you can identify what the reasons are and what is to be done, then you can do like me and wade through other languages. It's not the syntax, it's the job and the desired result.

Put your stuff in a Dim and give it a name. That name is now your stuff.
Like this. If I give Bob my $5, Bob is now the same to me as my $5...well...

Did I mention that I am planning to dump my Progressive insurance policy?